1814.] Scientific Intelligence. 315 



X. Caoutchouc Catheters. 



I insert the follor/ing communication just as I received it, re- 

 gretting that 1 cannot communicate any information on the sub- 

 ject, but perhaps some of my readers may : — 



"A Correspondent of yours is desirous of knowing how the elastic 

 gum catlieters arc made. This is not generally known ; for the 

 raauiif;i'.'!ory of these very important instruments is, I believe, 

 confined to one; a Mr. Walsh, formerly of Catherine- street. 

 Strand, now of Ciielsea ; but, whether owing to a more proHtable 

 pursuit, his supply his irregular, and his conduct not the most 

 accommodating. When they are made, they are very inferior to 

 those made at Paris. Whether this depends on the original struc- 

 ture, or from age, I am unable to say. 



, " The first person, who made them in this country was, I 

 believe, a Mr. VViiyat, surgeon, in the Strand, who is now dead ; 

 and with him died the secret, unless some of that ingenious family 

 possess it,, and consider the object unworthy their cultivating. 



" There is woven on a metal rod extremely fine soft silk, of 

 divers sizes, leaving an aperture, or, as the Parisians', two 

 openings. These rods so covered are clipped in a solution of the 

 elastic gum, and rubbed with a polished stone : then again dipped, 

 and rubbed till they are of sufficient thickness and firmness. 

 This is, 1 am told, a tedious process, and demands an uninter- 

 rupted attention until completed. 



" It is generally considered that pure ether is that which is used 

 for dissolving the caoutchouc. 



" The irregularity with which the Profession has been supplied 

 has induced several to obtain supplies occasionally from Paris ; and 

 they who have compared them with those made in London, under a 

 continued use in the bladder, will readily admit my statement. I 

 regret that the charge is too well founded. We ought not to be so 

 outdone in an article of such usefulness. A Surgeon." 



XI. Method of preserving Vaccine Mutter. 



Dr. Reid Clanny, of Sunderland, has favoured me with the fol- 

 lowing communication:— 



" Permit me to detail to you a most convenient and useful 

 manner of taking and preserving vaccine or variolous virus, which 

 the faculty of this town have found to be much superior to any 

 other. It is the invention of a Mr. Forman, an ingenious glass- 

 manufacturer upon the Wear, near Sunderland. It is in the form 

 of a small glass ball witli a tube issuing faini it, very similar to a 

 cracker, as it is called, which mischievous boys put into candles to 

 cause an explosion. The pustule from vihich the virus is to be 

 taken being punctured by a lancet in tl)c usual manner, the small 

 ball or bulb is to be heated at a candle so us to rarify the air within 



